


Look How They Shine

by duckatrice



Category: Night In The Woods (Video Game)
Genre: Canon Gay Relationship, M/M, Multi, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2019-10-04 11:00:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17303387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duckatrice/pseuds/duckatrice
Summary: "We're good at drawing lines through the spaces between stars like we're pattern-finders, and we'll find patterns and we like really put our hearts and minds into it and even if we don't mean to. So I believe in a universe that doesn't care and people who do."Began as an Angus/Gregg fic, but the scope has broadened to include a few other of my favorite NitW characters!





	1. SERIA

**Author's Note:**

> IT BEGINS
> 
> Obligatory Warning Labels: There's references to child abuse and overall shitty parenting! I also headcanon Angus as a FtM trans man who has to deal with being misgendered by family at the beginning of the story, so there's that bit in there. Also cursing.
> 
> Okay so the goal for this is to upload a new chapter every other Friday. I may not stick to that 100% with all the demands on my time lately, but we'll see what happens! About 12 chapters are planned, but there might be more in the form of shorter interludes that show up between them. This is still going to be primarily about Angus and Gregg, but there's been a few adjustments as the idea has had time to percolate. This is ultimately a story about patterns, and about people.
> 
> Hopefully you all like it! Comments and kudos always appreciated, and you can keep up with me and my projects at duckatrice.tumblr.com or my writing-specific page at duckscrabble.tumblr.com
> 
> Thanks, guys! This fic would not have been possible without your support.

Angus took a deep breath as he stepped through the imposing double doors for the first time. A new year of school. A new him. He steadied himself, rolling his broad shoulders, and pushed the doors open. No one stopped to stare. No one immediately called him out, accused him of the fraud he was committing in their hallways. No one even seemed to notice as he strode through the hallways, nodding at people he recognized and greeting them in a much deeper voice than he’d used last year.

Maybe one did a double-take, seeing something familiar in the gleam of his brown eyes behind the thick lenses of his glasses. For most of them, however, the change had been so gradual, so slow, that it was old news. Relief settled his anxiety, and he found himself smiling as he sat down for his first class.

It was going to be a good year. He could feel it in his bones.

 

“Angela, God damn it, what have I told you about wearing that tie in the house?”

Angus’ fingers moved to fiddle with the simple black knot at his throat as he frowned quietly, not looking up from the wooden whorls of the dinner table. His father glared at him, eye twitching, while his mother took another long sip of her wine.

“Oh, relax, hon. It’s just the style, these days. Angie can wear a tie if she wants.”

“Not in my house, she won’t.”

Angus closed his eyes, counting his breaths. Even now, though he was nearly as tall as his father, he wanted to go curl up in the pantry and hide like he did when he was five. Even now, he heard the crack of the belt in the low snarl of his father’s voice.

“Take that fucking thing off, or you’ll be going to bed without supper.”

His father’s eyes locked onto him, bloodshot veins creeping up to the deep black of his irises. He had been drinking again. Angus slowly rose from the table, setting down his napkin, and turned to walk up to his room in silence.

“Hey! Angela!”

“Hon, let it go,” he heard his mother groaning as he closed his bedroom door behind him.

 

“Angie! Is that really you? Holy shit, you look awesome!”

Angus grimaced, forcing the expression into an awkward smile as the familiar blue eyes of his old friend--and longest crush--lit up with genuine joy.

“It’s, uh... It’s Angus, now, actually,” he corrected, staring at the wall full of lockers.

Gregg blinked twice, tilting his head.

“What, really?”

Angus only nodded, feeling as if he’d like nothing more than to be swallowed up by the earth at that very moment.

“Cool!” Gregg chirped, smile widening. All at once, he lashed out a lean arm and punched Angus in the shoulder, cackling as he did so. “Welcome to the guy club, my man!”

Angus blinked back at him, rubbing at where he’d gotten hit as a slow, lopsided smile crossed his lips.

“Hey, dude, me an’ Mae were talking over the summer, and we’re totally gonna start up a band with Casey! It’s gonna be awesome! You should come watch us jam sometime! Mae’s gonna do bass, Casey’s on drums, I’m gonna sing. So whaddya say?”

“Uh... sure? Where--”

“Oh, we dunno yet. But we’re totally gonna do it.”

Angus chuckled, shaking his head slightly. Not one of those three had a lick of impulse control between them. They’d gotten themselves in more than enough trouble to prove it, too.

“Right. Well, uh... let me know, I guess?”

“For sure, duder! What class you got next?”

Angus blinked, pulling the folded schedule out of his pocket as they turned to walk together down the crowded hallway.

“Uh... Honors Geometry, it looks like.”

“Boo,” Gregg complained, crinkling his nose. “I got English. What lunch?”

“B lunch?” Angus replied, adjusting his glasses.

“Yesss! Nice! Mae does, too! Not Casey, though, he got stuck with C lunch, poor guy. Los Tres Amigos, back in the saddle again!”

His shrill voice was loud enough to cut over the chatter in the halls, and Angus couldn’t help but wince as multiple pairs of eyes turned their way. He only gave the onlookers an awkward smile in return; everyone knew what Gregg was like, after all. They couldn’t hold that against either of them.

 

“Angela, you open this goddamn door!”

Angus drew in a deep breath and forced himself to rise from his desk, gently closing his laptop as he did so. As he walked toward the door, his fingers worked the knot out of his tie. Of all the things for his father to pick a fight about today...

He opened the door, silently leaning against the frame as he met his father’s eyes. The older man opened his mouth to speak, then spluttered a moment when his eyes fell on the blank space where the tie had been moments ago.

“...Hmph. Damn straight,” he finally grumbled, straightening himself up. “Ain’t gonna have any of this... this weird shit in my house, you hear me? You’re a girl, and you’ll damn well act like one under my roof.”

“Mom doesn’t wear dresses,” Angus muttered, a sudden fire in his belly making him bold. “And you don’t yell at _her_ for it.”

“Your mother’s a grown-ass married woman who’s had a kid!” His father bellowed, jabbing his finger into Angus’ breastbone.

Angus stood firm, though every muscle in his body screamed for him to flinch.

“...Fine,” he said, forcing the word out of his mouth as he looked at his father. “I won’t wear the tie in the house. I’m still going to dress like this, though.”

He gestured to his sweater and neatly-pressed pants, feeling his hand tremble just the slightest bit as he did so.

His father sneered.

“Fine. You give me any lip, or talk back to me at all, _ever_ , while you still live under my roof, though, and I’ll go and buy you some nice fucking sundresses to wear. And you _will_ wear them, by God. You understand me?”

Angus remained silent, heart pounding in his chest as he found himself torn between self-preservation and sudden, blistering fury. His father leaned in closer, bulging eyes staring through him as his lips twisted into a snarl. Angus could smell the booze on his breath.

“Do. I. Make myself. Clear?”

A hundred memories of being slapped across the face, dragged by the hair, snapped by a belt, flashed through his mind at once, quenching the fire within him, and Angus let his head droop.

“...Yes, sir.”

“Good. Now go wash the goddamned dishes, your mother’s a fucking mess.”

Angus did not argue, his face a perfectly blank mask even as a blazing whirlwind raged inside of him. He was going to get the hell out of here, soon. He just had to bide his time. He just had to hold on for another couple of years, and then...

 

Beatrice sighed as she walked with Angus to the cafeteria, rolling her eyes.

“I don’t know why you hang out with those lowlifes,” she muttered, shaking her head slightly.

“You used to hang out with Mae,” Angus pointed out, quirking a brow at her.

“Ha. Yeah, before she turned into a huge asshole. And criminal, I might point out.”

“Okay... granted, Mae and Casey aren’t... the best influences ever,” Angus admitted, rubbing the back of his neck as they stepped into the seemingly endless line together. “But Gregg’s a good guy.”

Beatrice squinted at him, her face crinkling.

“A ‘good guy’? I’m pretty sure he and Mae both tried to set the school on fire last year.”

“...But they didn’t.”

“Whatever,” Bea replied, rolling her eyes despite the fact that she was smiling. “You just like him, is all.”

Angus felt himself blushing as he cleared his throat.

“Well, I mean, it’s... it’s not..”

“It’s cool. You can say it. I’m not judging--well, actually, I guess I kinda am, because he’s literally a tiny overly-excitable thug, but...” Beatrice replied, now outright grinning as she let the rest of her statement drop away unspoken.

Angus only flushed deeper.

“It’s not like... it’s not like he’d even be interested.”

Beatrice shrugged, grabbing a tray and watching with idle disgusted fascination as the ladies behind the lunch line ladled all sorts of indescribable horrors onto her platter.

“You never know.”

Angus dwelled on the thought until they’d finally scanned their cards at the end of the line, and Bea separated herself to drift off into the group of honors students she usually travelled with. Angus stood indecisively in the middle of the cafeteria, watching her leave and sweeping his gaze over the other tables.

He caught sight of an arm flailing at him from across the room. Gregg was already seated with Mae, the two of them arguing over a box of chocolate milk now that one of Gregg’s arms was now occupied with flagging Angus down.

He walked over to join them, chuckling as Mae wrested the box out of Gregg’s hand.

“Ha! Victory is mine!” She cried, a mad gleam in her eyes as she held the box high.

“Hey! No way, I was only half paying attention! That doesn’t count!”

“TO THE WINNER GO THE SPOILS,” Mae shouted, ripping open the box and immediately chugging down the entire container of chocolate milk.

Gregg pouted, looking at Angus with those brilliant blue eyes of his.

“Can you believe this? My own bestest friend in the world, _usurping_ my milk.”

“Truly, one of the greatest tragedies of our age,” Angus replied solemnly as he handed over his own little box of chocolate milk.

Gregg immediately lit up, cackling his victory as he shoved the little box into Mae’s face--only to recoil with a squeal when she attempted to steal that one, too. Instead, Gregg snapped the box open and chugged the milk down, leaving Mae to sulk beside him.

“Ah... thanks, dude! You’re the best,” he enthused, beaming at Angus.

Angus only smiled, trying his best not to blush as he picked at his so-called ‘food’.

 

He left for awhile after doing the dishes. His parents didn’t care. They were both lost in their own little worlds, passed out in front of the television in the den. The crisp autumn air felt good in his lungs as he headed for the park, remembering the invitation from Gregg at the end of the day. It didn’t take too long to get there, and it was turning out to be a beautiful night; stars twinkled in the distant cosmos overhead, and Angus found himself spending more time staring up than he did looking where he was going. Still, it was no trouble. He knew these roads like the back of his hand, even though he rarely got the chance to escape his parents for a little while.

A constellation caught his eye as he approached the park--Ibon, the first singer. He had always wondered what those ancients were thinking, connecting the dots like they did. Why a goat? Why did he sing the first songs, in their eyes? Why, for that matter, was he so eager to teach the fish to sing?

He hummed to himself, a formless tune in a rich, low voice. What would it be like, hearing a fish sing?

“Hey, I didn’t know you could sing.”

Angus jumped, snapping his head around to find the source of the sudden voice. Gregg waved, grinning. He was sitting alone on a bench, shiny black boots kicked out in front of him as he shoved his hands into the pockets of his leather biker’s jacket.

“O-Oh. Uh... I don’t, really,” Angus muttered, clearing his throat.

“No, man. You sound good. Soulful.”

He couldn’t help but smile, rubbing one of his arms as he slowly approached.

“...I thought Mae and Casey were going to be here?”

Gregg shrugged, squinching his nose.

“They had stuff come up, so it’s just me. I thought about not coming, too, but I figured you’d probably come, and then you’d be all alone, and that wouldn’t be cool.”

Angus chuckled, moving to sit next to him on the bench.

“I’m usually by myself. It’s no big deal.”

“Really? I thought you had all kinds of friends.”

“I mean... sort of, but they’re mostly... y’know, school friends. We don’t... we don’t hang out, or that kind of thing,” Angus explained, shrugging a little as he looked back up at the stars. “Same with the scouts. Just friendships of convenience.”

“That sucks,” Gregg said, visibly drooping.

Angus shrugged again.

“It’s okay. I don’t plan on staying in Possum Springs too much longer, anyway. I’ll find other friends.”

“Going off to college? I know you’re, like, super smart,” Gregg chirped.

Angus only chuckled.

“I mean... eventually, yeah. But I’m moving first.”

Gregg tilted his head to one side, squinting a little, but didn’t say anything further. The two of them sat in silence for awhile as the stars twinkled overhead. Not even the dim glow of the streetlights could overpower them tonight; everywhere Angus looked, he could see another constellation he recognized. Lines between stars. Patterns connecting disparate pieces of information. Impossible to see, and yet as concrete and clear and ordered as any piece of program code.

“So... what’s it feel like?”

Angus blinked, looking back at Gregg.

“What?”

“Y’know... being a dude, now.”

“Oh. Well...” Angus took a deep breath, trying to figure out how to put years of confused body image into words. “It feels... like it was always meant to be this way.”

Gregg only grinned, eyes gleaming in the moonlight.

“Cool. I’m happy for you, duder.”

Angus nodded, smiling to himself as he idly played with the hem of his sweater.

That surge of boldness from before lit a new fire in his belly. Maybe it was the stars. Maybe it was just getting out of the house with an actual compromise in place, maybe it was just being alone with him, finally, but...

“Hey, um... Can I... Can I tell you something?” Angus asked, looking askance at his friend.

“Of course, dude! Anything!”

Gregg leaned forward, his full attention on Angus. For once. Angus faltered, clearing his throat as he fidgeted with a loose thread on his sweater.

“I, uh... I’ve always... I really like you.”

“I like you, too,” Gregg chirped, beaming.

“No, um. Like... I...” Angus grimaced, fumbling with the words. Words were always a lot harder than mathematical equations, plugging in the variables and watching the numbers work.

“I... _like_ you,” he repeated awkwardly, leaning heavily on the word as he forced himself to look at Gregg.

Gregg only blinked. It may have just been a trick of the light, but Angus could have sworn he saw him blush. Then, all at once, he let out a wild, mad cackling, and Angus blinked as Gregg threw his arms around him.

“Really?!”

Angus laughed, flustered, and reached up to adjust his unseated glasses.

“Y-Yeah, but... I mean, I’ve liked you for a... a long time, but I always figured since you were... you liked... guys, that...”

Gregg grinned up at him.

“You _are_ a guy, my dude.”

Angus blinked slowly, taking a deep breath as a whirlwind of emotion threatened to overwhelm him.

“...With a nice ass, I might add.”

He couldn’t help but laugh, slumping against Gregg and hugging him tight.

Just a few more years. He only had to wait a few more years to leave Possum Springs. He looked up at the stars, trying to stifle the sudden onset of the sniffles. Two stars reached out for one another across time and space. Imaginary bonds, an invisible pattern, held them in place.

Maybe, just maybe, the bond would be strong enough that he could take Gregg with him when he left.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An exploration of Selmers, and her role in the strange celestial orbit of the people trapped within Possum Springs.

               Being tough was all that mattered in life. That’s what she used to believe, anyway. Her mother had driven it into her skull, over and over again: you keep your head down, you do what you have to do, and you keep moving. For a long time, it worked. She plowed through life with the stubborn determination of an ox, pursuing everything she had been told to pursue. She went to school. She got good grades, mostly. She graduated, even though her own mother had never quite made it to the stage.

               But somehow, amidst all the stress, something in her armor had cracked. She didn’t really know how the addiction had begun. A headache, maybe. Pain in her back from moving just wrong, an old sports injury flaring up again. She got married, and everything just got worse. The money was tight, their relationship rocky. They were in love, so why was it all wrong? It had to have been her fault, she told herself. She just wasn’t trying hard enough. She fell deeper and deeper into that hole, burying her anger and frustration in an opiod haze as she took what she needed from the pharmacy. Turned out her husband had been the asshole all along, fondling some bimbo on the side for God knew how long; they split, and she got sloppy.

               There were no opportunities in Possum Springs, not for someone like her. First generation graduate, not enough money to afford more than half a certification at the local community college, grew up on the wrong side of the tracks, married and divorced—the deck was stacked against her from day one. But she believed—and that was the saddest, most laughable part of it all, she _believed_ —that if she worked hard, kept her head down, kept that rage simmering just under the surface buried in painkillers that couldn’t ever quite reach the pain in her head, the pain in her chest, keeping everything locked away… Everything would be okay.

               It wasn’t.

               She got caught. Thrown in jail, caged like a wild animal. Fists pounding on the bars, knuckles bleeding as they scraped concrete because it wasn’t _fair_. She had worked so _hard_ , all her goddamn _life_ , and no one gave a damn. All that mattered were the missing pills, the cut profits. Addict. Burnout. Thug. _Criminal_.

               The worst part?

She began to believe that they were right.

Rage fizzled into despair, depression, a sour sort of taste at the back of her mouth that never quite went away. They offered her a deal when she stopped punching the walls and sat quietly in her cell: rehab and therapy, and she could go free, cutting her sentence in half. She took it. The concrete-and-steel cage was worse than anything else they could have thrown at her.

               Rehab sucked. Therapy sucked even worse, having to dredge everything back up from that murky pit she had lost it all in years ago. Worse, they had a label for everything, and none of them felt like they fit. Told her to keep a journal, to write down all her feelings—and for what? How did writing her feelings change the reality of what she was up against every day? How did writing her feelings fix the town dying around her, devoured by greed and then forgotten, left to rot, parking lots empty as streetlights scraped the sky, illuminating nothing but the permanent lie of what could be bought and what could be sold—found their profit and lost their soul.

               It was that kind of poetry that set her free. Her mind began working in verse; something about the rhythm, the rhyme, the way that raw emotion poured out onto the page, emptied the churning pain in her heart. The poetry was the only thing that allowed her to keep moving forward despite sleeping on a couch in her mother’s basement like the chronically unemployed felon she was.

               Then Mae Borowski came back, and she found herself confronted with the realization that she wasn’t alone in her failures. Her down-the-street neighbor had reached escape velocity, found her way off to college—and now was right back where she started, just like Selma Ann Forrester always had been. That girl had been through some shit. Selmers saw it in the way she carried herself, always running away from something as if a dog straight from hell was right on her heels. So, she began to share some things. She talked about her own experience with Dr. Hank’s bullshit journal when she saw Mae scribbling frantically in it one day. She offered up some poems, made up on the spot, the cheesier the better, just to watch Mae’s expression.

               They didn’t see one another much, just a few minutes here and there, but it was enough. Two stars in orbit, occasionally bumping into each other and spinning off into their opposite directions once more. Mae was a good kid—a weird kid, no doubt, but a good one—and ‘Selmers’ hated to see what was happening to her as she sank deeper and deeper into the pit of Possum Springs. This town changed people. It ate them alive, stealing whatever it was that made them beautiful in the first place.

               So, Selmers did what she did best: she put her head down, and she got to work. She poured her feelings out on the page, scribbling words out and re-writing them over and over again. Mae probably would never hear it. It didn’t matter; something about setting the words free through the cadence of poetry changed things, even if just for a minute.

               The poetry society had been the ones that really encouraged her, pushing her to get more serious about her craft. She’d taken them up on the challenges they’d offered. Tonight, she had something that rang true, which was all that poetry was ever really supposed to do. She waited for the others to finish, having volunteered to go last—but she hesitated, just for a moment, when she saw Mae Borowski and her tall goth friend on the other side of the reception desk.

               Sometimes, the universe had a weird sense of humor.

               Selmers spoke. She let the words pour out of her soul, giving life to the ink scribbles on the beat-up sheet of notebook paper she’d been carrying around for the past week or so. “There’s No Reception in Possum Springs,” she’d called it—because it seemed like such a small thing, but it was the symptom of a larger, more insidious disease.

               She spoke the lies that she had been told for years—the future is yours, if you work hard enough. If you make enough money. If you sell your heart and soul and hollow out your body, worn-down empty husk, and die having scraped and scrimped and scrabbled your way over the bodies of a thousand others. Not even the heat from their burning cities could warm them, she thought as she finished the last lines of the poem. Even burning it all to the ground wouldn’t be enough.

               But there was something in Mae’s eyes when they looked at one another at the end of the recital. Something new. A fire lit by words that had traveled across the short distance between them and burrowed into her brain. Selmers gave her a small nod, and Mae smiled back; that was enough. If she changed nothing else, she had changed Mae Borowski. It was an impossibly small change, maybe, barely noticeable—but it was enough.

               It had to be enough, she thought to herself as she lay on the couch in the basement, staring up at the spots on the ceiling as if she could see every constellation ever dreamed in the vague, inky darkness above. She closed her eyes and swore she could still see the stars shining behind her eyelids.

               _Starshine_

               _Is fine_

               _In the dark_

               _Broken heart_

               _Don’t cry_

               _Learn to fly_

               …eh. She could workshop it later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys! Thanks for reading, and I hope you liked this chapter!
> 
> I know this story (or collection of stories) is turning out a bit differently from Broken Road, but sometimes I just like to get experimental and play with things ;) Plus, Selmers is one of my favorite characters, so I wanted to spend a little time in her head. Who knows, we might just be revisiting her later...
> 
> Comments and kudos always appreciated, even if I don't always have time to reply! I definitely read every one of them, and they always make my day.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gregg has Concerns.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EYYYY I'm back! With another Gregg/Angus central chapter! Most of the chapters will be them, but I'll occasionally digress to some of the others. We'll see how it goes!

                Sometimes, Gregg felt like he was two different people trying to live in the same scrawny body. There was usually enough room for both of them, at least—but sometimes, one or the other would break out and run wild, completely unable to be reined in by the other until he found himself lying face-down in the mud somewhere, laughing and crying at the same time.

                It wasn’t so bad. Not usually, anyway.

                But sometimes, well… sometimes it just got complicated.

                He kicked his boot in the mud as he walked away from the Snack Falcon, hands shoved deep in his pockets. Mae had left for college not too long ago. It felt almost like she’d died that day; he kept waiting for her familiar chime on the messenger app they shared, but it never came. It was okay, though. It wasn’t so bad. She was going and getting an education, which was awesome. She was getting out of Possum Springs, which was even better.

                What was worse was that Casey had disappeared not long after that. Not a single goodbye. Not a letter, not a note. Not even a last jam session with what was left of the band. He probably finally hopped the trains and rode away, just like he always said he was going to. Maybe someday, he’d send a letter, stamped with all kinds of cool places.

                Or maybe…

                Gregg shook his head, forcing a big, toothy smile that felt like it was cracking around the edges. It was fine! Casey was tough. So was Mae. But Gregg—wasn’t. He hunched his shoulders, squinting at the mud beneath his boots as he walked past the apartment he shared with Angus—and kept walking, his mind racing a thousand miles a minute. He was alone—but he had Angus. But all his friends were gone—but Angus was waiting for him. Had probably cooked something delicious. But every day was the same thing, over and over again.

                He had thought high school was bad. High school had nothing on working life.

                Every day, he got up, screwed around pointlessly until it was time to go to work at the Snack Falcon, got to work, screwed around pointlessly as he waited for the customers that never came, and then went home, where Angus would be waiting, zombified, after a day of doing almost the same thing.

                It was torture. Some days, he wanted to run into the woods and claw his eyes out of his skull, just to free all the pent-up boredom that had taken up permanent residence in his brain. He and Mae had always come up with things to do. They would go and spray-paint the walls—never The Guys, of course, no one messed with The Guys—or do a little harmless shoplifting. Or they would get a little rowdier, run around shrieking at the tops of their lungs, and then whip out the knives and go at one another until one of them finally wussed out. But now he had _Angus_ , and he _loved_ Angus, but he had to be _good_ , had to go through this awful cycle of wake up, go to work, come home, go to bed, wake up…

                Leaves crunched under his feet as he walked into the woods, scowling.

                He was so… selfish. His hands clenched into fists inside his pockets as his body began to tremble. Angus was going through so much and working so hard to get away from his shitty family, and here Gregg was, complaining just because he was a little bit bored and a little bit tired.

                “Stupid,” he barked, his sharp voice echoing off the trees around him into a hundred broken accusations.

                _Worthless._

_Foolish._

_Childish._

_Selfish._

_Good-for-nothing._

_Hooligan._

He closed his eyes tight, clenching his jaw until he thought his teeth were going to crumble. When he opened them again, he looked up and saw two birds standing at the edge of the lake, their tall, lean forms creating piercing silhouettes against the brilliant rays of the fading sun. Slowly, the tension flowed out of his body. He shuffled toward them, letting his hands drop to his sides, before slowly sinking down to sit on the spongey turf of the lakeside. The birds paid him no mind.

                For a few moments, he watched them. Then, he picked up a stone and hurled it into the water between them, baring his teeth in a sharp grin as they took off with a flutter of wings and a cacophonous racket of squawking.

                _Why did you do that? They weren’t bothering anyone_.

                His smile faded, and he crossed his arms over his chest. Angus wouldn’t have liked him acting like this. Casey probably would have called him out on it, too.

                “But screw Casey,” he growled to himself. “He _left_. He doesn’t get to say anything anymore.”

                He stayed there, stewing in his thoughts, until the sun finally dipped below the edge of the horizon, sending its last gasping breaths of orange light up into the bruise-purple dark of the night sky. Then, finally, he sighed and stood up, dusting leaf litter and mud off the seat of his jeans as he turned to make the slow walk home.

                Up, work, woods, home, bed, work… One small deviation in the scheme of things. Angus would be mad—or worse, _disappointed_. All the manic anger he felt slowly simmered away, leaving behind that hollow, empty feeling he’d felt the day he’d woken up and realized that Mae wouldn’t be coming around anymore. The same feeling that had growing into a yawning, echoing pit the day that he realized Casey was gone, and wasn’t coming back.

                Something had been irrevocably lost. Pieces were missing.

                He couldn’t lose Angus, too.

                By the time he opened the door, he was sobbing. Angus blinked at him, standing in their little kitchenette with a cooling tray of lasagna between his mitted hands.

                “I’m so sorry I’m late, I was just walking and I kept walking and I went to the woods—and then Casey and Mae, and these _birds_ —and I threw a rock, and my pants got all messed up and—”

                “Woah, woah. Slow down, Bug. It’s okay,” Angus said, brow creasing with concern over his thick glasses. He turned to set the lasagna on the counter, then moved to pull Gregg into a hug without taking off those comically oversized oven-mitts he’d bought not long after they had moved in together. “It’s okay. Take some deep breaths.”

                Gregg clung to him, fisting his hands in his boyfriend’s shirt as he buried his face into his broad chest. He _couldn’t_ lose Angus. Angus was the only good thing he had left, and they were going to get out of Possum Springs together. They were going to build a _life_ together, and it was gonna be great—even if nobody else was around to share it with them.

                “I’m sorry, Angus. I’m sorry.”

                “For what?”

                He didn’t answer. Too many things came to mind, and they all wedged themselves in the dam that had burst in his brain. Instead, he clung tighter to his confused boyfriend, letting everything run its course until he looked up with a shaky smile.

                “You made lasagna?”

                “…Yes?”

                “Hell yeah! I love lasagna!” He chirped, forcing the fog-light smile into a high-beam grin. “Lemme go change my pants and we’ll chow down!”

                “Uh—okay? Are you sure you’re—”

                “LASAGNA!” He yelled from the other room exuberantly, earning a knock on the floor from the room below them.

                “ _Keep it down up there,_ ” a muffled voice echoed through the linoleum.

                Gregg stomped back, practically tap-dancing on the floor to shut the old man up. He had Angus, and he was bound and determined that he, Greggory Lee Himself, would be the best damned thing that had ever happened to him. He deserved something good, for once in his life—even if Gregg was too far gone to deserve anything good of his own, he was going to keep being selfish. He was going to cling to Angus, and do his best not to drag them both down to whatever hell he belonged in.


End file.
